Unifor’s national president is dismissing suggestions General Motors has threatened to shutter Cami and move production to Mexico.

With media reports citing unnamed company officials warning the auto giant is looking at all options, Jerry Dias told The Free Press they’ve never heard that threat from the company.

"We have not heard that. GM has not said that to us" at the bargaining table, said Dias, whose union represents 2,800 striking workers at the Cami plant in Ingersoll.

The union president’s comments come after a GM spokesperson — who refused to be named, citing ongoing negotiations — said in a Canadian Press interview the company sees no choice but to explore production alternatives.

The source told Canadian Press they told Unifor president Jerry Dias on Wednesday.

The company said it can’t agree to the union’s demand to guarantee investments and job security because they’re part of long-term trade issues, including the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiation.

“We’ve been very clear from day one that those are long-term trade and market things that we just aren’t going to be able to sign up for,” the spokesperson said.

General Motors said Thursday it was backed into a corner when it told the union representing striking Cami workers it may shift more production of one of its best-selling vehicles to Mexico.

The company’s warning to Unifor comes as a strike at its Ingersoll plant stretches into a fourth week. Both sides refuse to budge on the demand of job security at the Cami plant, which assembles GM’s Chevrolet Equinox crossover SUV.

The union wants GM to guarantee it always will build more Equinox vehicles at the Ingersoll factory than in Mexico, a demand spurred by the auto giant’s move to shift production of another popular vehicle, the GMC Terrain, from Cami to Mexico in July, cutting 400 local jobs.

In a phone interview Thursday from Washington, D.C., where NAFTA trade talks are being held, Dias said GM’s comments were nothing less than a declaration of war on Canada.

“This is GM saying to us — and saying to Canada — we’re going to ramp up production in Mexico and we’re going to flood the North American market from cars built in Mexico,” he said.

Dias said the company is taking advantage of the lower-wage Mexican workers at the expense of higher-paid workers in the United States and Canada.

“This is the ugly side of NAFTA, that people don’t want to talk about,” Dias said. “Mexican workers are being exploited and, as a result of that, we’re losing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Canada and the United States. It has to stop.”

The Cami plant is a prime example of a trend that has been happening for years, said Dias, with GM adding plants in Mexico while closing Canadian and U.S. ones.

Cami workers walked off the job Sept. 17, the first strike in 25 years.

CAMI AND THE STRIKE

General Motors-owned Ingersoll plant opened in 1989

2,800 unionized workers, 300 salaried staff

Builds the Equinox crossover SUV, work the employees want preserved in Ingersoll